what would you do? – employee question

[Debe]

Wow, that’s a lot of great insight there, Frank.

Maybe it’s part self-preservation, but I certainly had let why I really left my staff job get crammed back into the far recesses of my memory. Usually I just tell folks that the company had grown and changed and we were going in different directions. It had become clear that it was time for me to strike out on my own. That’s my professional “if you can’t say anything nice…” response when queried.

The company changed dramatically. When I was hired, I was employee number 11. I was also the last non-management position that the owner of the company personally interviewed. It was an assistant editor job. Lowest job on the totem pole at the time. Yet the owner and the VP of Post spent nearly two hours with me that day.

Through mergers, buy-outs and other methods, the company grew and grew while I was there. By the time I left, there were divisions, multiple levels of management, and unfortunately, a “you’re lucky to have this job” mentality. I WAS lucky to get the job originally. Most of my co-workers and I had more than proven that our talent, expertise, and personalities are what kept the clients coming back. It had been a mutually benefical relationship. Originally.

When I was accused and punished because an on-staff producer (acquired through a buy-out) thought it was a good career move to blame the failure of a project on me, rather than taking responsibility for the failure on her part to adequately produce…I figured it was time to move on. If they couldn’t see what really happened, if management was more intent on pointing fingers and being able to “prove” to the client and the owner that they had taken measures, rather than finding the actual cause, I knew it was time to spread my wings and fly….

I waited a full fiscal quarter before tendering my resignation. I wasn’t the first to leave, and I certainly wasn’t the last to leave voluntarily. There was a mass exodous of almost all of the real talent in that place. One person admitted to me that the treatment I received was part of what started him thinking about if this is still the kind of place he wanted to be any longer. It certainly wasn’t the entire reason he left, but it was the impetus to get him thinking about what kind of company he wanted to work for.

Yet, still, I grew up in a family where my dad went to work for the same company every day for 23 years, and my mom is just about to retire from the same hospital she’s been working at since before I was born. I understand loyalty, and I’ve always been loyal to my employers. It’s the way I was raised. Somewhere in there, I finally figured out that in this day and age, companies that are as loyal to their employees as I’ve seen my parents be to their employers are very few and far between. Unfortunately, it’s almost a dead relationship, and that is really very sad. Quitting that job was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I felt very disloyal to the owner of the company. I ran into him in the airport a few years later. It was one of the most awkward situations in which I’ve ever found myself. I certainly feel no guilt for quitting to the management at the time, yet I still feel badly about quitting to the owner.

People know that the best way to get a raise is to get a new job. Employers know that the best way to get someone cheaper is to make the guy or gal with lots of experience quit. Somewhere in there, both sides have forgotten that there’s more to this than the bottom line. They seem to have forgotten, or have yet to figure out, that a happy employee is a large part of the equation for happy clients. A crabby employee says horrible things about your company, makes your clients uncomfortable, and may make them move along. The smartest way to keep your clients happy is to keep your employees happy. Of course, client loyalty is the part of the equation that seems to be missing in most of our conversation here. A loyal client is a client that likes to work with you. If it ceases to be fun, or productive, or efficient, or cost-effective, clients will leave. How do you keep it fun, productive, efficient & cost-effective? Keep the employees in top form! This is not to say that employees should come before clients, but a delicate balance needs to be achieved. Employees shouldn’t suffer to keep the clients happy, and the clients shouldn’t be ignored to keep the employees happy.

Most of my clients today are people that I worked with or at least had met while I was on staff. Now that the company no longer exists, it’s easier to have honest conversations with them about those days. Most of them tell me that things over there changed dramatically about the time everyone was leaving. It wasn’t fun anymore. There was an air of something is “no longer right”. It wasn’t about the price or quality of services, although those were a factor, but really that it had become a soul-less place. There was one guy left from those “golden” days, and he was the saving grace. People would go back for him. Most of the rest of them came along with the rest of us. Clients don’t keep coming back because they like the managers. People come back because the like the product and the experience. Translation: They like the employees. The people who earn the company the money should be much more respected than they seem to be these days.

Would we have all been better off if we’d stayed together? Would the company have survived past 5 years if we had not all left? No one can really answer that, I know.

I’m certainly not regretting my decision, but sometimes I wonder how long it could have gone on if different decisions had been made at the management level. Maybe the owner would have still sold 5 years later, but if management had made better decisions and had been more loyal to the employees, I bet the company would have been worth a whole lot more when he did sell.

debe

[Steve Wargo]

I tend to go too easy on people, up to a point. In business school, they teach “Hire slow. Fire fast”. However, you have to look at the entire situation as an outsider. Is this person treated the same as family? Does he have an “attitude”? Is there some reason that he is allowed to disrespect the CEO? It’s no business of his how much the boss does. His ONLY concern is his job, his responsibilities and the question of whether he is being treated fairly. Is he looking to get fired so that he can file a lawsuit?

I guess that my first tendency, had he disrespected my father, would have been to toss him through the closest plate glass window, but that is me and I am hardly the person to show clear thinking when a close family member has been pissed on in front of others.

Find a way to get rid of this problem before it costs you money. And it will. If you have to come here and ask, you already know the answer. You’re only looking for us to agree.

Now, for my level headed advice: Consult the company attorney on how to get rid of this guy.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona

It’s a dry heat!

[Sam Lesante jr.]

Wow!

Thanks to all of you for the great insight and advice. It puts it all into perspective for me a little bit better.

To clear up some things;

1. I do not use the word “troops” to characterize my employees, it was me trying to use a witty phrase.

2. It was not his mother that passed, it was his step grandma that he has talked about in the past about just meeting her a year or so ago, so I think it is safe to say he has no emotional connection to her.

3. Our company is really small compared to others. We only have 7 full timers and 2 or 3 part timers not counting me, my sister, my mom and dad.

4. I am the softy in the business, I am the one who usually tries to think of an excuse for them as to why they did something wrong or why this piece of equipment broke or why the video is blue or why the audio did not come out as good as usual. We even allow him to use our company vehicle as a personal one as well because he has no way of getting around. All we ask in return is for him to stay an hour or two more a week. I think that’s a great deal.

But I guess I got a little bit more upset when I heard of the remark about my father who came from picking coal as a kid, went through college while selling musical instruments from a corner store, busted his ass for everything he has today, is still busting his ass to keep the business alive for me and my sister to take over someday. In the 35 or so years he has had employees, I think he only fired 4 or 5 (and they were the bad apples because I was around for some of them)

So, I guess the reason for my first post was double fold in a way.

1. To come on and vent a little about how my employee pissed me off

2. To get some expert advice from people who have been in this situation before on both sides of the coin so I can understand more about my employee because I do believe in having employees for a long term. Before 2 years ago, all of our employees were with us for 6 to 9 years. Now, like Frank said, we have 2 or 3 that have been here longer than 4 and the rest are only 2-3 years.

Thanks again for all the great posts, I did not expect that many.

It has been a couple of days since the incident now, and the employee is working like nothing even happened. It seems to me like he is acting a bit more positive. Maybe the funeral thing had a bigger effect on him than I or he wants to believe it did.

Sam Lesante Jr.

[Ron Lindeboom]

Gee, Mike, now *that* was a useful and insightful post. ;o)

You accuse a man that you don’t know of being loopy and ask if he even knows the guy??? Wow, that’s a case of doing the very thing you’re accusing someone else of. Good thing that you aren’t the one running this loopy family-run hick business, eh???

Ron Lindeboom
(who has worked in family-run businesses and wouldn’t again — well, in most cases)

[Steve Wargo]

And maybe he realizes that he is an a–hole and needs to stay under the radar. Either way, make sure you put this in his file and gather witness statements now while it’s fresh in everyone’s minds.

Sometime, people don’t know how to handle death. This might have affected him deeplt even if he didn’t really know the person. Or…he is using it as an excuse.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona

It’s a dry heat!

[Frosch]

Yours is a video production business, no? Just asking cuz you were talking about “venting”.
I wonder if any of your employees might stumble across this thread, I mean, it’s pretty specific, and we are a relatively small industry.
I don’t know if I’d be too jazzed about working for a company that airs their dirty laundry online…

[Sam Lesante jr.]

At this point I don’t really care if he does see it.

Whenever I post anything online, I assume the person I’m talking about and everyone around the area is seeing it so that’s not a concern to me.

[Grinner Hester]

I never made a habbit of staying where I wasn’t wanted. If I felt over worked and under paid, I assumed they wanted me to bail and I did just that. I never griped, especially in meetings. One is either glad to be there or one isn’t. I have only had to fire one person in my lifetime. The rest, like me, knew when it was time to move on. Maye you should drop a hint.
It’s very hard for artists to work for the boss’s son. If he knew the deal coming into this, it’s his bad but if a fence has been built around a wild stallion, he’ll always kick it down and run.

[13]

If he just read your last statement,

“At this point I don’t really care if he does see it.”

then he and every other employee at your company will know just how little you and the company care about them as employees and as people.

[Frank Otto]

Grin, I wish the rest of us could get to work in your world! Or could get some of the folks there to let the rest of us in. It’s a good place to be coming from. I’m not joking or being sarcastic (note:no “s\…s/” in use). I’ve followed your journey the past few via the Art of the Edit forum – you’ve done some huge creative and CK and I have often discussed your posts from the technical to the esoteric. So don’t be offended – I’m just using your post as a reason to jump back in…

I gotta tell ya – this thread and one about “The Film Look” in the Cinematography forum seems to have encapsuled this brave new world of what I’m calling “creatology.” It’s a world just filled to the brim with folks that own baseballs believing that ownership is proof of ability to use one or those that own baseball teams believing ownership is proof of ability to coach.

Or, dropping the metaphors, it’s a mean new world of people buying creativity in the way of technology without having the knowledge or skills to create with said technolgy and/or non-creatives buying creative types and, in doing so fall under the assumption that they are now themselves, creative. And in both cases it’s all about making tons of fast cash.

I just don’t see the era of all of us playing in the sandbox together and building castles and sharing our toys and knowing when recess was over like we did when we were four(and truly creative), happening anytime soon. In fact, the sandbox has turned into the catbox of corporate p&l sheets, with stinky little pockets of coagulated shareholder equity and the occasional bottom line turd.

And just after you get the thing all destunkified (destinkified? Verb? Noun? Tense? Buhler?) and begin building a bigger castle, the lo-ball bully kids get out of school and kick your castle apart or, worse yet, show up “en-masse,” and in an instant, all your sand has dissapeared.

And then the damn cat comes back…

“What the heck happened to our sandbox?” and “What the heck is a sandbox?” and varients about building your own and what is a good one/bad one, where do I get sand – how do I get it back…keeping the cat out…you get the idea; these are the questions we all need answered if we’re all going to get back to doing what we do best – create worlds where none exist, out of just sand and a little mosisture. With apologies to author David Gerrold, who’s sandbox analogy I have stolen liberally from, it’s no longer about recoqnizing the difference between a sandbox and a catbox (i.e playing in one and doing “business” in the other).

It’s all catbox now.

Is the problem reaching pandemic proportions? Is it just us or is it labor vs management in general? Is it corporate greed? Global warming…sorry, wrong rant. One thing for certain, it isn’t going to change from the top – just like building a new house, the work has to begin at the bottom.

So, peasants..it’s time to light your torches – a cleaner Transylvania is up to us. Now, how much is good sand and how do I keep the cat out…

Cheers,

Frank Otto

“Design is a process by which you create something for a client who has no idea of what they want until they see your design – then they know what they want, but your design isn’t it.”